I went ahead and played through C:\FOR\EVER on the Windows package and it's working perfectly now. What a wild ride of a game that was! The most memorable thing about the experience for me is just how creepy and distinct it feels from the standard RPG Maker experience while still coming off as polished and smartly put together. I see some bits of OMORI and OFF in the aesthetic though the music and interspersed media elements/fourth wall breaking really give the game its own flavor.
The combat also really sticks out to me as a strong point. It's fun because of how much character the enemies have and just how satisfying the sound and graphics of the attacks are in general. I also really like both the normal and boss combat themes. I got a little overwhelmed by the Paper Mario-esque interactive attacks at first but once I got the hang of using each one they all started to feel pretty natural. My only beef with the system is that having to mash like crazy for several seconds every time Stephen uses a heal skill gets annoying real quick, I'd prefer if it was maybe toned down a bit.
As for the story, it does a really great job getting across the moods of guilt, regret and obsession, and how the main characters deal with them, even if we don't understand the specifics of what's happening in the story. There's so much abstract visual spectacle here that I feel like I'm getting jumbled glances at some bigger picture that would maybe make sense on repeated playthroughs. It's not even clear who the antagonist of the game is or if there even is one at all.
Normally in a game this would be the point I'd start digging up wiki articles piecing together hundreds of scraps of lore but since that obviously isn't here for C:\FOR\EVER I'm going to have be satisfied with some educated guesses. I've played through enough to get both endings and I still don't really know what we actually accomplished. This is probably going to get expanded upon in the sequel since this is apparently just a demo, so maybe just waiting is the only way to get some real answers.
Probably the biggest mixed bag for me in the game is the puzzle elements. There's quite a few of these, both in terms of figuring out what to do next to advance the story and getting past traditional RPG obstacle rooms. Some of these I enjoyed- the fetus stone hallways and the floor tile puzzle come to mind- but a couple others, like the ghost maze in particular, felt like a lot of frustrating trial and error. I think conceptually this room works it just could be tweaked a bit to help players not have to redo the same passageways so much. I imagine that room in particular is going to be the number one obstacle gating players from getting the alternate ending of the game.
Overall, though, C:\FOR\EVER was a fun and unsettling experience that's a cut above most free RPGs you'll find on itch.io in terms of craftsmanship and creativity. If the aesthetic of the game looks interesting to anyone reading this review I definitely recommend checking it out.